Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) - photo 1
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) - photo 2

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

Lot 182
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 2 142
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108982
Lot 182 | Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Estimate value
£ 2 000 – 3 000
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Autograph letter signed (‘Dylan Thomas’) to Denys Kilham Roberts, Holywell, Oxford, 5 April 1946
Two pages, 202 x 259mm. Provenance: Sotheby's, 29 June 1982, lot 408.

Discussing in detail the poems and poets to be included in the Society of Author’s recital, alongside his preferences regarding his own participation. Opening with an apology, ‘I shan’t be able to attend the final meeting of the C’te on the 10th I’m afraid, so may I make my very few comments now?’. He believes that Milton ‘should have more time’ and that ‘it is a pity to lose Vaughan’s “Retreat”, let’s overrun by 2 minutes rather than lose a great poem’. Thomas agrees that Cecil Day Lewis should read “To His Coy Mistress” and that he does not mind reading “Tyger Tyger”, ‘but I should like to see Lawrence represented’. The poet agrees, with regret, that there would not be enough time for “Kubla Khan”, ‘however much we’d all love to include it’.

Discussing the second half: ‘I think, very strongly, that a longer poem than “Anthem for Doomed Youth” – longer and better should be chosen to introduce this half. I strongly suggest Owen’s “Exposure’’. Questioning why he did not think to suggest one of Robert Graves’ ‘grotesques’ during the last committee meeting, he states that he ‘should like, myself, to choose, of Hardy, his “In Death Departed” and either “After a Journey”, “Rain On Her Grave”, or “Lizbie Brown”’. Thomas concludes his discussion of the Recital’s programme with ‘Hope you manage to read this very quick scribble. I wish the C’te good luck with a hell of a job’.

The letter relates to ‘A Recital of Poetry of the Past and Present’, hosted by the Society of Authors on 14 May 1946 at Wigmore Hall in London. Thomas read his “Fern Hill” on the evening, and his recital of “The Tyger” was described by Edith Sitwell in a later letter to Kilham Roberts as ‘one of the greatest, the most impressive, the most wonderful things I have ever heard or witnessed’. In a review, The Times stated that ‘Mr. C. Day-Lewis, Mr. Louis MacNeice and Mr. Thomas came off much better in reading their own work than Mr. Walter de la Mare, Mr. T. S. Eliot and Miss Edith Sitwell’. Later that year, Thomas was awarded £150 from the Society’s Travelling Scholarship fund which allowed him to go abroad for the first time.
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